


Two Wrongs

by damselindisguise



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men (Original Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Fandom, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X2: X-Men United (2002)
Genre: Angst, Father-Son Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutant Hate, Mutants, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 21:57:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7009822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damselindisguise/pseuds/damselindisguise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oh, Stryker knows. The old adage, two wrongs don't make a right... but this is so damn easy to be wrong about he doesn't care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Wrongs

**Author's Note:**

> ((A/N: I typed like half of this on my phone, so if there are typos, that would be why! Also, I took inspiration from both timelines, which is why they are both here, but its really new timeline based with prompting from the old timeline on a number of things past Apocalypse. Very, very minor spoilers for that film, by the way. As in, literally one or two vague sentences of spoilers. Otherwise, hope you enjoy!))

It starts like any other day, really.

William Stryker wakes up at home, in his bed, and thinks of what once was. 

It starts like the old days, if he's honest with himself, before Trask and Mystique and stadiums falling out of the sky woke him up- mutants, screamed shattered concrete and torn metal, are a problem that he'd never realized until all of that. Bolivar had opened his eyes, it had just taken that final straw to make him see it all clear, for real. 

That's why, when, sparely four years later, when Jason's powers had come, he had tried to live his days like they'd been back then. He'd been wrong to, of course, but he'd felt that he had to try, for his son...

"Bill," Marcy had called out to him, "Bill?"

And he'd tried. He'd tried, for his son, his boy, his Jason, his Jay, to make things better. He'd tried to accept the 'gift' that Charles Xavier argued so vehemently that it was that Jason had been given by the DNA of his parents, heterochromatic eyes turning to more.

But then he'd remembered Magneto, the man hovering among the skies, dropping a ring around them like a killbox, and he couldn't. Mutation was dangerous, and wrong- why else would it be mutation, of all things, and born from the atom, the bomb, no less? 

Born from death, if you asked him, an expression all too common in his mind often as he sipped restrained sips from a glass of scotch hidden in his desk.

So, he resolved at last, he would help Jason, save him, save his boy, because he had to. He had to, because he loved his son, more than anything- more even, he would sometimes think, deeply ashamed of himself, than Marcy.

Then Jason had grown up, gotten angry, going mad, really, and turned that goddamn power drill in Marcy's hands to her temple. 

God, if William Stryker had loved his little Jay a bit less, maybe he could have broken loose and stopped his son, kept the boy from making himself a man with a blood rusted drill bit, but he didn't.

He loved that boy with all his heart and soul, because that was his blood, his progeny, his heart and soul and mind, his pride and joy, for all the anger he could inspire in his father.

After all, he liked to tell himself, we fight the most with the people that we also happen to tend to love the most, and so it was. 

He loved Jason the most, and that was how he lost Marcy.

~

William Stryker wants Jason fixed, he does. He repeats that to himself over a bowl of limp wheat pieces in a cereal bowl that Marcy liked to make warm for him before she put them in the cool milk each morning. He repeats that to himself in the mirror as he costs himself precious time at work fixing Jason to coat his face in shaving cream and smooth out all the lines, keep his high and tight crisp and his face clear.

All the same, he can see everything in his face, written like scripture. It's the same face it's always been- angular and handsome, exceedingly so, he's been told by many, but not so angular as to be effeminate- no, his jaw is square enough, and the cut of his hair to his scalp and stubble to his jaw ensures exemplifies clearly that fact. 

This face and these distinct features are still his, and he slaves over insurance of such, but each day it grows harder to do when he wants to fix Jason.

Jason, pulled from Charles Xavier's Institute to come home and learn to kill before he was sent away Alkali Lake to learn how to die inside, just like his father, every day of the long, long week.

He can't remember the number, the designation, that he slapped on his son's folder, and doesn't want to. He doesn't want, especially, to remember the lobotomy he had them carry out on his own damn son, because he was too dangerous, the angry mess that he had become, doesn't even want to remember that- he just wants to remember his little boy.

When he's here at home, his little Jay is just that- the son he took to ball games, until the ball park flew away with Magneto, and carried on his shoulders at the malls, until his powers made that dangerous for both them and everyone else, as far as the Stryker parents had been concerned.

Now, here he is, passing the room he has Jason in- a cell, to be fair, if a nice one- and trying to think of the number and the designation, because Bill, Dad, is not here anymore, can't be, at least not right now. 

He must be Colonel Stryker. 

After all, a new mutant has just recently arrived... and he's a doozy.

~

A cursory check reveals all Stryker needs to know- this newcomer has claws like Victor Creed, but there are only three, which is compensated for in length, by far, not to mention that they aren't linked to his fingers, which he perceives as possibly being more versatile, assuming, of course, that the mutant's healing factor is indeed powerful enough to filter out any infections picked up by his bloodstream from the trident of such.

"My name is Colonel William Stryker," he tells the cage, and is surprised at the vehement snarl in response, sitting back and watching it shake.

"Let me out of here, bub, or I swear I'm gonna gut you and everyone in this place like a goddamn fish!" comes the response, a harsh, animalistic bellow- not that Stryker had imagined any less, really, from what he'd heard about this particular case of mutant. 

"No can do," Stryker finally denies, lips quirking up as he continues, "But, I think we can actually help each other..."

"How?" the mutant in the cell asks, after a coarse pause, punctuated by his panting from inside the shadowed crate.

"I need you," Stryker explains shortly, "And in return, I'm going to make you stronger. Indestructible, even."

"You need me, huh, bub?" comes the mocking, crass response, which earns a surprised snort of chagrin, though not without mirth, from the Colonel.

"Sure," Strykee decides to allow it, "If that floats your boat, thinking of it like that. There are some doctors I have on staff here for certain things I need from you that I'm just not able to take with my skull set. They're going to see you now, okay?"

"Okay," the mutant decides, "Just one question."

"What?" Stryker asks, befuddled, but not unwilling to answer.

"Why does it smell like my shithead brother Victor Creed down here?" 

~

The tests are a long series, and, eventually, James Howlett stops submitting so easily, instead snarling that charm isn't going to get him to go for some more torture- no, he wants reasons.

Stryker does have those, he thinks, watching Jason sit there limply, tears creeping down his pale, clammy cheeks as the doctors draw fluid from his spine to help with a new formula they're developing. It's just a question of whether the reason is something he's willing to show to the feral mutant.

As it turns out, he is. 

"This is my son," Stryker starts, as soon as they've dragged James in and locked the door- a show of confidence on Stryker's part, if there ever was one, considering the feral's more violent known exploits- and then stares out the glass, trying to see his son in those vacant two toned eyes that stare back at him in that unsettlingly sickly way. 

Jason has always wanted to know why Dad is immune to him and Mom wasn't. William has never known the answer and has never supposed he wants to.

It makes him shiver to think it's his own form of mutant gene that protects him, but in the wee hours, the thought does sometimes torment him, same as those of love and quantity and quality and Marcy and Jay.

"You want to save him," James realizes.

"Yes, James," Stryker snorts, dry and truly deadpan, "He's my son. How could I not?"

"Logan," the mutant corrects, "What's his name?"

"Jay," the Colonel tells him, and, since he almost chokes on the emotion of the nickname of a father for his son in his throat, corrects, "Jason."

"Nice ta meet you, Jason," Logan grunts, almost sardonic, at the glass, and those empty heterochromatic eyes slide wetly to examine the feral for a moment before returning to tormenting their sire.

"Now you know why," Stryker snaps, deciding he needs a drink, "Don't skewer any more of my doctors, Logan. They don't appreciate it, and nor do I."

~

"Is this to help your son?" Logan asks one day, during a test in which the doctors are drawing out samples of his bodily fluids- urine, blood, spit, spine, anything they can think to take, really.

"Yes," Stryker confirms, since he's actually in the room today, arms crossed across his chest. He's wearing grey, having shed the old tan uniform for something that intimidates the patients a little more, it seems. Seeing him stalk their way, face lined in a constant underlying conflict that they must take as some form of rage at them works wonders, especially with the younger ones. Not Logan, though.

"My bare ass wonders how its helping," Logan grunts, pursing his lips and eyeing all of the doctors mistrustfully.

"Its making it easier to get urine, having your clothes out of the way," explains one of the doctors, and earns a small growl from Logan for taking the statement literally when he apparently meant it entirely rhetorically- not that its easy to know, sometimes, with the mutant.

"Its for ease," Stryker cuts in, and Logan's lips quirk up into a dangerous little animalistic version of a smirk, his sideburns and beard twisting with the stubble on his face as he does.

"Ease of what?" he inquires, with a gritty mocking in his voice, his eyes flinty before he turns away from the Colonel.

Stryker is not going to sink to the level of flirting with Logan, so he turns away and stays stoic, examining the wall and the scans of Logan's bones closely, as the doctors go over his body chemistry. While he's certainly not blind, and also not as exclusive as he likes to make it seem, and has indeed noticed the feral mutant's apparently eternally built body and his supple forming, especially in the nether regions, he's also not a total sleaze, but, instead, a professional. He will not succumb to such stupid feelings, even if he hasn't had sex since Marcy took the power drill to her head at Jason's behest.

"Colonel?" one of the doctors asks, bringing him back to the present, and he turns around, uncrossing his arms and lowering his fingers from where they frolicked, considering, against his mouth. Its an old habit- one he's never broken and one he's not likely to try to. Marcy used to say it made him look a little like a 'thinking man,' whatever that means.

"Yes?" he prompts them to go on.

"The other subject..." 

There's a keen pause, an almost tenuous silence, and then she sighs and lets it out all in one woosh of words.

"Your son is asking for you, Colonel."

Stryker is out of the room before Logan has time to ask from across the room what's going on.

~

Jason is in his chair, as ever, but his eyes are raised now, his head a little bit less at a slump than it used to be as he stares up at his father- his limp hands quiver faintly, and William kneels before his son, knowing all the while this must look like submission to the mutant that took his wife away from him. Its not, of course.

Its submission to his son.

"Jay," he whispers, breathless, reaching out, and tries to take his boy's hand, but its just as lank as ever, cool and slick and unresponsive when he squeezes- not the hot, sticky palm of his little boy, anymore, excited and constantly gripping tightly on his Dad's fingers to drag him to look at whatever tickled the boy's fancies. 

Some faint presence scrapes against his mind, but apparently still can't find its way in, and Jason looks a little bit disappointed, surprising William. Expressions are a spare thing nowadays out of his son, who most often just sits there opening and closing his mouth like a fish, or otherwise entirely still, besides the uncomfortable twitching that he engages in constantly, unnerving everyone.

His son's lips shiver apart, clicking his tongue, making the faintest 'T' sound, and then, frustration- a quick tightening of his brow, a sharp, bloodless bend of his fingers- and he dulls the sharp noise with effort, eyes darkening a little as he manages to spit out, "D. D."

"Dad," William suggests, understanding the noises, and overwhelmingly desperate, one hand on his son's, the other on the boy's knee, coming up to cradle his face- there's stubble there, a faint, mangy rash of it that his own father had never noticed. He feels wrong for not knowing, but, maybe that's the price of working so hard to save your son's life; you have to miss a few things for his own good.

Jason's heads flickers on the stick thin neck he's been given, muscles and tendons so tense they show out of the sides of his skin, and moves up and down minutely- a nod.

"What is it?" William wonders, his hands shaking, too, now, "What is it, buddy?"

"M," Jason struggles, eyes watering, "M."

"M?" his father asks, considering the noise, and comes to two converging solutions- Marcy, or Mom.

"Mom?" he tries, and Jason's watery eyes start shaking in their sockets, his eyelids fluttering uncontrollably, and tears spilling down the grimy sweat coating his cheeks, crossing it, cleaning it. William wipes them away, his calloused thumb catching on the too-soft skin of his son's skin, and watches dirt come with it. 

Another nod manages to escape Jason's condition, and William takes a shaky breath, holding on tighter to the only family he has left in this world- his hand, at least, because his face is too fragile, too young, still for any sort of force to be applied, whether the man needs it for grounding or not. 

"She's- Jason, do you remember?" he tries, staring into his son's dual toned eyes, and that neck tenses again, bending, a tilt, before a little nod makes itself apparent. 

"M," the boy murmurs, looking sad.

"Jay," William breathes out, and wraps his son in his arms- he smells like cleaning supplies, like antiseptic, and not too much like soap, just that and sweat, and the acrid, dry scent of dust that has built up for far, far too long. For a moment, its perfect- he has his boy in his arms, and its okay, everything might be okay, just this once, for them, because maybe Jason is coming back to him, slowly, and they can find a way to help him, make his powers fade and lock them away so he can't hurt anyone anymore.

Then, he feels his son's mind against his, and a hand against the back of his head, and tears loose, staring into the boy's eyes, incredulous- and he sees nothing of the one he was just talking to, just a vacant, pleading sort of rage and despair. 

"Jason? Don't do that," William tells him, voice shaking, and the feeling stops, suddenly- the scratching on the sides of his brain go away, and then he sits still, just staring at the boy- no, man, now- in the chair. 

"D," he tells him, "M."

"You miss her?" his father inquires. 

Jason sits still and does not answer. They bring his lunch in and, this time, instead of the nurse, William Stryker feeds his son- spoon to mouth, spoon to mouth, watching the way he opens and closes his jaws faintly, lips quivering, like a fish, as the gel of food slides down his throat. The faint leap of his Adam's apple, showing like a blade in such a thin throat, is the most response that he gets for the rest of the conversation.

All his son is trying to do now is please him- nothing more, nothing less.

Stryker leaves the empty tray outside the room when he exits, and tries not to think of those flat colors following him as he stalks down the hallway towards the mutant cells.

Its time to let his anger out.

~

"Sir?" the doctor asks- its the same woman who had told him Jason asked for him, he realizes, but that's not important. He adjusts the scalpel in his hand, and continues incising around the mutant's strange fingernails. 

"What?" he asks, voice deceptive, not flat, but not emotional, either. Its an empty sort of jolliness that he speaks with. 

"The damaged subjects are getting infections," she murmurs, "We're going to need to order more antibiotics."

"Fine," he decides, "I need something to practice on, right? Practice makes perfect. I'm learning."

"Yes, sir," she answers faintly, "And, Colonel?"

"Yes?" he asks, growing testy, as the fingernail falls away and he starts on the next one, wiping some of the mutant's shiny blood on his surgical uniform.

"Your son is due for another spinal fluid extraction," she informs him, and he goes still, raising his head after a moment of gathering himself, centering himself in his own chest. 

"Mutant 143," he manages to lie, because Jason is still Jason, will probably always be, to him, "I see. Thank you for telling me."

"Yes, sir," the doctor repeats, and leaves, at that.

"Hm," Stryker hums to himself, "I wonder. I wonder."

He sets down the scalpel and leaves, wiping his hands and shedding the bloodied parts of his uniform, until he's in shirtsleeves and his pants and boots- he looks much, in this outfit, like he used to, only with a few more lines on his face, a bit more dread.

"Doctor," he calls out to her, as she goes to enter Jason's- 143's- cell, "Allow me."

"Are you sure?" she asks, brow furrowing low with concern, "Its a very painful procedure for him."

"I would imagine so," he nods, and takes the syringe from her before stepping into the room.

Its a little more bare bones than it used to be- some of the amnesties he had afforded his son have been removed, because Jason is mostly absent now- this is just 143, slumped in his chair, doing nothing more than what he's asked to do. All of this, Stryker thinks, is a sign that he needs to move faster- faster, if he's going to save his son.

"Mutant 143," Stryker greets, but, then, when he gets nearer, asks, close to his son's ear, "Jason?"

There's only the mildest twitch of response, a tightening of a pair of muscles in his back, and a quick wayward slide of his two toned eyes before they flatten and deliver that blank stare again.

"I'm going to draw your spinal fluid now," he informs the mutant at his fingertips, even if they are thrumming, because this is his son, this is his boy, his blood, his-

The needle slides home, and Jason stiffens, mouth opening, lips searching the air pointedly, teeth clicking, and, suddenly, from his vocal cords, a sound.

"D," Mutant 143 begs, "D. S. S. St."

William Stryker looks at the ceiling. This is for the best, he tells himself. This is all to save Jason, he tells himself. Even if Jason is begging him, trying to say 'Dad,' trying to say 'Stop,' if he's hearing right, he has to do this. Its all the reason more to do this- there's still someone deep in there to save.

He tries to ignore that his son is crying through the pain and the emptiness of his state, but after he leaves the room, he can't anymore. He passes the syringe to the doctor, shaking, and walks down the hall until he reaches an empty room, where he can just lean against metal and let it out- a scream between tight lips, and then he beats on the cage for a long, long moment, until his knuckles throb, and he draws back, staring at the shadows inside as he realizes he's not alone in here at all.

"Hey, bub," Logan greets from within the dark chamber, "What's going on out there?"

"Nothing," Stryker grunts, turning away and scrubbing the back of his hand, his knuckles, across his eyes, "I just. Did something I didn't want to have to do."

"With Jason?" the feral mutant notices, "I can smell that, you don't have to tell me."

"Thanks," the Colonel grunts dryly.

"No problem," Logan responds, and its both serious and sardonic, coming from the mutant's mouth like that, bringing Stryker to turn around and meet those eyes, their startling, animalistic stare just beyond the bars, now, visible in the sliver of light there.

"Logan," Stryker murmurs, stepping closer to the bars, and a set of long, thick fingers emerges, curling around the metal, "What else do you smell?"

"Nothing good," the mutant shrugs, apparently, "Sweat. Blood. Metal. Old cologne."

Stryker wets his lips, and thinks of the mannerism on Jason- on 143- because its something they share. A quick, slick dart of the tongue out across pink skin. 

He is thinking about the curve of Logan's back, descending, lower, lower, instead, now, because that's too painful a memory, and losing himself in the mutant in this cell is something else entirely as he reaches up and lets their fingers knit together like this is one of those goddamn films with the contrived 'star crossed lovers' romance plot, literally separated by a wall, as it would be.

"Stryker," Logan grits out, a warning of what's going to happen if they don't stop, because he doesn't know everything about the family, but he knows enough. He knows the Colonel's guilt.

The human unlocks the mutant's cell, closing the door to the hall, and waits.

Slowly, Logan emerges, looking wary, and his eyes find Stryker with the same animalism as they did from within the cell, but somehow more drawn, in a slower manner- one that is clearly meant as heated flirtation, and the mutant gets closer, closer...

The bone claws extend, and the Colonel flinches deep inside, but refuses to show it outside as the feral draws them along his arm, barely refraining from cutting into the flesh.

"I could kill ya," Logan points out, "Right now. Set all the mutants in this place free."

"But you won't," Stryker breathes out, measured, "You've got a soft spot. You want to help, don't you?"

"Maybe a little bit," the feral agrees, at a low snarl, his breath humid and smelling of yesterday's lunch as it crosses the Colonel's face.

"Good," the man decides.

"So what do I call you?" Logan inquires, "William? Will? Bill?"

"Stryker," the Colonel declares, stony, "Don't call me anything else."

Logan lets him kiss him, and if he ever wanted any other part of the mutant, he gets it- the planes of muscle along his back, curving low, curving in, and then up and out to meet his tough rear, where Stryker anchors himself and holds to the feral's sides, moving deeper and deeper into his own shame. 

He's doing this- this- with a mutant, with a man, and he knows its wrong, and he knows he's betraying Marcy, but. But. Its been years, and he can't help it, enjoying the way Logan spits and curses, pushing back violently against the Colonel, because he is not- could never be- one for submission, and yet. That's what Stryker demands of him. 

Its wrong, Stryker knows that, but he's done wrong already today. He knows that he's already begun to descend, as of thirty minutes ago at most, maybe less, and so its not okay, but, in some twisted way, it might be. Its not okay, but it is, because he's dumping his pain out as fast as he can now, in the burning of his muscles and the ache for letting go he's felt so long finally being quenched between them, even if its just wrong to do it. Even if he's doing more and more wrong with every motion he makes here and now, in this room, with this mutant. 

Oh, Stryker knows. The old adage, two wrongs don't make a right... but this is so damn easy to be wrong about he doesn't care.

When two wrongs are committed, he decides, since there's no way to make a right of them... maybe its time to stop trying to be right and just let himself do what is wrong until, eventually, he finds the number of wrongs that do make a right in this world that took his son away from him, made him into nothing but Mutant 143, this world that took Marcy away from him and made her dust under a headstone... this world that led him here, mixing his sweat with Logan's, and feeling the way the feral mutant bites down on his chest, the way his nails bite at his back and the bone claws threaten to come out. 

So, when its over, Stryker leaves Logan be, and goes to the doctors, and tells them- he's found a subject. The perfect subject, not man, for the job of trying to take on the Adamantium procedure, the only one who might be able to survive it, because Victor Creed never healed fast enough, or well enough, to make it through that business, that misery. 

Logan, though- Logan might be the key, whether he likes it or not, and if he can understand the limits of his healing factor...

Maybe, just maybe, Stryker can heal his son from the lobotomy, from the mutation, from the betrayals laid at his feet by his father, and, then, work on healing himself from all the wrongs he's committed and all of the pains he's endured.

So he readies the Adamantium procedure Logan never asked for, probably never wanted, never would want, and sits down with sweat still drying in the cracks of his skin and his dark hair and waits.

~

Logan escapes, as do a number of the other mutants Stryker recently captured. That's okay, he thinks, high in the sky, and looks back at Jason, comfortably positioned against the wall in the chamber that blocks his telepathy from attacking the pilot and taking the copter down. 

He's got himself, and he's got Jason, and, soon, he will have his facility back, and then he can fix everything. 

He can do it.

~

Stryker looks in the mirror and doesn't see anything left of William, of the man that Marcy loved to look at and run her fingers across the bare sides of his head, the smooth edges of his square jawline. He's not as handsome anymore, and he's not clean shaven, and he doesn't usually comb his hair all that often. Its just a mess of wavy darkness, and, then, he sees grey creeping in at the sides. 

He has the mirror removed.

He doesn't want to see himself anymore- can't bear it.

Maybe, whispers a presence in his mind, because he's not himself anymore, and he thinks of being young and happy and carrying Jason on his shoulders through a crowded ballpark and being drug through the supermarket by a little boy's hand while Marcy laughed her high, tinkling bell laughter and followed them through thick and thin, because he was their boy, their son, their Jason, his Jay.

The presence slides out like water, because it has trouble staying there, and he acts like he doesn't know what it is as he draws the last of the tube of spinal fluid out of Mutant 143's neck and then steps away.

"Thank you for your contribution, 143," he says, voice jovial and empty, as he moves around the wheelchair and leaves the cell, even as two toned eyes sit still against his back, watery and waiting for him to say the boy's- the man's- name, in response for the orders well followed today. 

"Goodbye, Jason," he adds at a murmur, knowing his son will hear it, and closes the door behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> ((A/N: Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :) ))


End file.
